Since the adoption of the U.N.’s Genocide Convention sixty years ago next Tuesday, the world has been witness to numerous genocides. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour will host a 2 hour documentary called Scream Bloody Murder tomorrow at 9PM ET/PT to understand why individuals who spoke out against these crimes were ignored. Additional dates and times can be found here.
Amanpour interviewed Mukesh Kapila, a British doctor and former U.N. official, on the international community’s response to the Darfur crisis for the documentary.
“What happened in Darfur would be classified as obscene,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “It’s a combination of a horror movie and a snuff movie.”
However, Amanpour also notes the role that activists have played in bringing the crisis to the forefront and demanding action by elected officials.
But as conditions in Darfur became more widely known, a grass-roots movement began to grow, putting pressure on the White House and a spotlight on the U.N. Security Council. According to Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, “no other tragedy since 1945 has caught the imagination of so many people as Darfur has.”
Check out the documentary tomorrow and let us know what you think.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Save Darfur Coalition.
DGA says:
I think that the show was very good and placing Darfur in its historical context – pictures were shocking for many probably but the interviews with the upstanders were good at speaking about why WE DON’T ACT as one humanity.
I was very disappointed however how at the end Amanpour basically left the question hanging – what will you do when genocide happens again, rather then WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING NOW… HERE ARE SOME OPPORTUNITIES TO ACT…
There was none of that. It seemed like from footage from Bosnia, she was pleading for intervention, and for Clinton to do something, anything more than the nothing he was doing. Why not use this same angle and ask Bush or even President-elect to do something on National (and International as it will air on the 6th and 7th) TV.
Glad that CNN put this together – it is more air time then all Darfur coverage over the past 5 years – but its bullshit they didn’t have a call to action. Especially when Moreno-Ocampo stated in his online interview that it is THE PEOPLE who get governments to act.